Black Friday and Christmas in the pet sector: the month-by-month plan

The simple plan to prepare for Black Friday and Christmas in the pet sector

Roberto Caballero - ADV Strategist & Growth Marketing Manager — Published on September 3, 2026 - Updated on 15 September 2026

September and October are the months when everything is prepared: offer, content and campaigns.

In the pet sector the last four months of the year account for a disproportionate share of sales, but the result is decided in September and October, not in November. Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November: whoever chooses the offer in mid-November arrives when competitors are already selling. This is the month-by-month plan we use, including the mistake that cost us a week of sales.

The four-month plan

• September: choose what to sell. Define the products or services to promote, check the margins and decide whether you want to attract new customers, increase order value or bring people back into the shop.
• October: produce the content. Organize the shoot, prepare photos and videos, build the offer page and check that the site works properly.
• November: activate Black Friday. Start building the audience about fifteen days earlier. Present the offer, create interest and keep a special condition for 27 November.
• December: switch to Christmas. Change the message and propose gift ideas, Christmas bundles, gift cards, delivery deadlines and in-store pickup.

September: don't just pick a discount

The first mistake is thinking that Black Friday means applying a percentage discount to the whole catalog. First you have to understand which result you want to achieve.

• Which products or services do you want to promote?
• On which products do you have a sufficient margin?
• Do you have enough stock to handle the orders?
• Can you prepare and ship everything within the promised times?

You don't necessarily have to discount everything. You can choose a main product, create a special bundle, offer a gift above a certain spend or combine several items into a box.

For example, instead of applying 20% off everything, a pet e-commerce store could create a Black Friday Box with treats, toys and dog care products. The goal is not simply to lower prices: it is to build an offer that is easy to understand and appealing to buy.

October: arrive at the shoot with a list

If you want to sell in November, the shoot has to be done at least a month earlier. Before taking photos or recording videos, prepare a precise list of products, customer questions, scenes and messages to communicate.

Shooting without a list means working a full day and ending up with very little actually usable content.

To cover the period up to Christmas you can prepare a library of 24-48 Reels and variations. You don’t have to produce them all at once and they don’t all have to be sales videos. Split them into four groups:

• Useful content: explains products and services.
• Interaction content: asks questions and involves people.
• Behind the scenes: shows the shoot, the warehouse and packing the orders.
• Sales content: presents the Black Friday and Christmas offers.

Part of the sales content can be used only in the ads. The social profile has to keep building trust; advertising has to guide people toward the purchase.

November: don't wait for Black Friday itself

Start communicating the offer about fifteen days earlier. Show the products, explain the benefit and remind people when the promotion will end. On 27 November you can add a product with a bigger discount, a limited gift, included shipping or a box available only that day.

This way you avoid keeping the whole catalog on promotion for weeks and you save a special moment for the main day.

December: start again from the people you reached in November

Black Friday and Christmas have to be part of the same plan. The people who visited the site, watched a video or added a product to the cart can be reached again in December.

This strategy is called retargeting. In simple terms: you show a new ad to a person who already knows your business. In December change the message and focus on gift ideas, Christmas bundles, gift cards, in-store pickup and the last useful days to receive orders.

How much budget you really need in these months

During the Black Friday and Christmas period the cost of advertising rises because auction competition increases, so the budget has to be increased before the peak arrives, not during it. The three thresholds stay the same as the rest of the year: below 20 euros a day you don't gather enough data, between 20 and 25 euros a day you can test, and as a scaling rule a healthy pet company invests about 10% of revenue in advertising. The difference is that in November that 10% should be concentrated on the products with enough margin to absorb the discount, not spread across the whole catalog.

The mistake that cost us a week of sales

On Animal Instinct, the pet e-commerce the founder is a partner of — 20,186 total orders and a 2.3% conversion rate since opening — we ran a WhatsApp marketing campaign to try the channel. Due to a mistake the offer went out to eighty percent of the customers instead of the small group it was meant for. We sold everything. The problem wasn't selling too much: it was being left almost a week without stock, with customers arriving and not finding the product. The lesson applies exactly to Black Friday: before deciding the discount you have to know how many pieces you can actually deliver, because the constraint on growth in those weeks isn't advertising, it's the warehouse.

Check that the site records what happens

Without correct data you are investing blind.

You can have a good offer and invest a lot in advertising. But if the site doesn't record what people do, you won't know which campaigns are working.

You don't have to become a technician. But you do have to ask whoever manages the site to verify these tools:

• Google Analytics: shows how many people visit the site and what they do.
• Google Search Console: helps you understand how they find the site on Google.
• Google Merchant Center: used to show products on Google, if you sell online.
• Meta Pixel: measures actions coming from Facebook and Instagram.
• TikTok Pixel: measures campaigns run on TikTok.

A pixel is simply a piece of code that records certain actions. For example: a product view, an add to cart, a purchase or a form submission. It's not enough to ask whether it's installed: you have to check that it correctly records orders, purchase value and contact requests.

Without this information you are investing blind. And you can’t properly build the campaigns aimed at people who have already visited the site.

Do you also have a physical shop?

Before November check your Google Business Profile: address, phone, hours, photos, website, services and directions for in-store pickup.

To communicate Black Friday use the posts and offers on the profile. Don't insert discounts in the general description: Google's guidelines state that the description should not focus on promotions, prices or special sales.

The checklist before you start

• An offer that is easy to understand.
• Products, stock and delivery times confirmed.
• Photos and videos ready.
• A clear page where to buy or request information.
• Measurement tools checked.
• A single plan for Black Friday and Christmas.

Frequently asked questions